UNBURIED, performance by Georgiana Dobre, premieres at Suprainfinit
Entrenched in speculative somatic practices, Georgiana Dobre’s newly commissioned performance UNBURIED probes the materiality of coal as a generator for movement, sensing, and imagining. How can we activate our invisible bodily ties to this black, porous material? What are the consequences of touching coal? Can we think of carbon, present in both coal and the human body, as a shared materiality?
Extractivist methods may be imagined as a violent awakening of coal from its deep slumber through drilling and harrowing vibrations, an unseen violence that shapes our world. Thinking-with coal and its commodification, one can reflect on touching as itself an extractivist practice–a possessive grab onto something–, specifically in the context of disciplinary practices that alter perceptions on embodiment and the human’s place in (or away from) what has come to be constructed as ‘nature’.
Twisting touch as alienating accumulation, the performance instead accesses it as an agent that may in-form and maintain an open path of relating and communication. UNBURIED unfolds slowly, journeying through the twilight and into the night, as the three performers are being moved by and move with the pieces of coal. Falling in and out of deep trembling sounds, faint whispers, and loud sighs, they come together, breathe together, and drift apart.
UNBURIED is conceived and presented in dialogue with the exhibition Slow Burn by visual artist Kjersti Vetterstad at Suprainfinit.
Georgiana Dobre (b. 1989) is a Romanian dancer, performance artist and choreographer currently living and working in Oslo (NO). She has a bachelor's degree in choreography from the State University of Theater and Film in Bucharest and a master's degree in choreography from the Oslo Academy of Arts.
Her practice moves between dance, choreography, text and film. By looking at the world from queer and feminist perspectives, she seeks to find ways to unlearning dominant practices for what we perceive as "nature" and "natural". Based on various movement methods such as somatic practices her latest work explores the relationship between the body, objects, environment and imagination.
Dobre has recently been a contributing artist to Damla Kilickiran's solo exhibition Twine an image that is yet to be at Bergen Kunsthall, the dance performance Afterlife initiated by Louis Schou-Hansen and Karoline Bakken-Lund, which has been shown at the Suprainfinite Gallery in Bucharest ( RO), Oslo International Theatre Festival and My Wild Flag in Stockholm (SE), and Born Slippy by Marie Ursin and Alexandra Tveit at Sprinten Kunsthall in Skien (NO). She has previously shown work at Store Gilhus gård in Lier, Knipsu in Bergen and TOU in Stavanger (NO). Her ongoing project Book of Change, initiated in collaboration with visual artist Kjersti Vetterstad, has recently been shown at Zina Gallery in Cluj, Combinatul Fondului Plastic in Bucharest, and Kunsthalle Bega in Timișoara as part of Triumf Amiria – Queer Culture Museum (?) in Romania, and at Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo.
CREDITS:
Choreography and concept: Georgiana Dobre
Co-creating performers/ dancers: Kristin Nango, Lisa Teige and Georgiana Dobre
Costumes and hair: Adriana Preda
Music: Vera Dvale
Studio support: National Dance Center in Bucharest and Prosjektskolen Kunstskole in Oslo
Scenography and conversation partner: Kjersti Vetterstad
External eye: Bára Sigfúsdóttir
Photography: Maria Năstase and Alin Cincă
Produced by: Suprainfinit Gallery
Many thanks to Janne Talstad, Ellen Jerstad and Maiken Rye
This project is financed with the support of EEA Grants 2014-2021 within the RO-CULTURE programme.
Main image: Maria Năstase
Additional images: Alin Cincă
